Breathless
by firs
Summary: It's the feeling of air all around you, but nothing getting in. A scrap metal heart pressed on your lungs, cutting your breath in two. It's been three months, but the feeling hasn't left you.
1. Chapter 1

It started with his breath, and that's what it always seemed to come back to.

When Tony Stark had first awakened in the cave in Afghanistan he could barely fill his lungs. A tube snaked through the inside of his body, emerging from his nose had been the first thing he had pulled out, fighting feelings of disgust as he felt it slide through the back of his throat. He dropped it to the ground beside him, still gasping, trying to take in enough air. There was something wrong with him. Something was pressing against the organs in his chest, causing an impossibly heavy sensation, like a tool kit resting inside of him. He felt bound, and from beneath the thin blanket covering him, he could see the edges of a darkly stained banged, wrapped tightly around him. His heart pounded, and he could hear blood rushing to his head.

With trembling hands, clumsy from sleep and pain, he tore at everything he came in contact with, until his fingers grasped at what felt like a tiny engine lodged in the upper region of his torso. It vibrated, gently, under his touch, and had the warm feel and slightly burnt smell of a machine that had been running for too long. His breath started to come faster then, as a sort of shock took over. His hands traced a twin pair of wires that led from the instrument in his chest to a small car battery that was sitting table, next to his cot. He tried to inhale, felt his breath catch, and started coughing instead, his chest struggling accommodate the apparatus as it began to sharply to rise and fall. Becoming silent, and trying to get a grip on his situation, Tony closed his eyes and tried to calm down.

He inhaled slowly, first through his nose, and then after a long, shaky exhale, through his mouth. The room was cold, and through hooded lids he could see the ghost of his breath rise from his lips.

In and out…

In and out.

And still, there wasn't enough air.


	2. Chapter 2

_Every inch of his body was full of water and he felt the sensation of sinking – growing heavier and more distant, like a rock falling to the bottom of a pool. Eyes open and inches away from the bottom of a cement basin, Tony tried to struggle against the arms that were holding him down. Tiny white lights danced in front of his eyes. The electric machine in the centre of his chest wasn't made to withstand so much water. A prickling sensation started to wash over him, like tiny pin pricks. Impossibly hot and growing stronger, little waves of electricity pulsed through his chest. A dull laboured thudding of his heart, then a sudden relief as he's dragged above surface. Choking and gasping for air, there's only a moment before he's plunged in again. A sudden shudder from the machine inside of him caused him to gasp, inhaling even more liquid. Then air, again, just a briefly as before. Then, sputtering, back into the water. In and out, in and out. At the back of his mind Tony began to think to himself how nice it would be to just stop breathing entirely._

--

Pepper hadn't been born yesterday, and she certainly hadn't just started working for Tony Stark. Over the years of being his personal assistant, she was essentially the only person in his life that had to deal first hand with all of his forgotten meetings, public scandal and the ever lengthening list of girls that he brought home. She knew Tony Stark. She knew what restaurants he preferred to dine at, she knew what size to buy his shirts and suits in, and she knew he kept a room in his mansion in utter disarray, full of boxes of his father's personal things and memorabilia of his youth – a messy shrine to his parents. But when Tony stepped off his jet, after three months in what Pepper could only imagine as hell, there was something unfamiliar about the man who stood before her. He had shaken off Rodney, after being helped down the platform, almost as soon as he had seen Pepper waiting for him. His stiff gait seemed to smooth into a sort of stroll, as he smirked at his assistant.

"Your eyes are red." He said, his voice slightly rougher then he had intended. He cleared his throat. "Tears for your long lost boss?"

Pepper tried to return his smile, "Tears of joy." She said, quietly before a real smile flushed over her face. "I hate job hunting." She watched Tony's expression, trying to see any hints of what he was feeling, to be back, safely in the United States, but the expression in his dark eyes was nearly void. A grin still quirked the corner of his mouth, but it didn't reach to his gaze. He was standing close to her, like he often did, and she could he was slightly unsteady on his feet, despite his assured stance. Abruptly, the look in his eyes took on a harder edge, as he suddenly spoke again.

"Well, vacations over."

She followed him back to the car.


End file.
